This guide provides tips to help you read and understand academic texts more effectively.

Introduction

Reading is an essential skill in everyday life that you use all the time, from assembling a cabinet, trying out a new recipe, to texting. But reading academic texts has particular demands, because these texts  

• are much longer,
• are written in specialised vocabulary, and
• have a more complicated sentence structure.

As a university student and researcher, you are expected to understand scientific literature at a deeper level, form connections as you progress and use it to develop new ideas or knowledge.

Rozenberg (2015) defines three phases of reading, which we will address below:

• pre-reading, to activate prior knowledge;
• reading, the actual reading process; and
• post-reading, to summarise and organise.

Pre-reading

Pre-reading is about activating your prior knowledge about the subject and getting a first feel of the text. Before you dive into the text, ask yourself what you already know about your topic. Can you already identify some knowledge gaps? Also, clearly define why you want to read the text. To build knowledge on the subject, validate your own findings with existing literature, see how others have set up their experiments, etc. It can help to write this down as your objective!

First, have a good look at the text and try to determine what you expect to learn from it. Also, look at the format of the text. Are there different sections, and if so, what are their headings? For example, a text with a clear structure of introduction, methods, results and discussion is likely a scientific research article presenting new results. But if the article has a less clear structure, and for example discusses main themes on a subject, it could very well be a scientific review article. Review articles generally don’t have a section about materials and methods, although some describe their method of how their systematic review was done.

Next, a useful technique to quickly assess a text is by skimming it. Skimming is meant to be done quickly without reading the full text. Glance over the text to identify the main structure, key elements and headings. Try to determine what information you expect to find in which part of the text. Reading the abstract also helps!

Once you have skimmed the text, you have an overall idea of what the text is about. The next step is scanning. Scanning texts is also done quickly, but here you pay attention to specific information like dates, numbers, names or other keywords. Think of questions you would like to have answered and identify search terms. Scan through relevant sections that you identified during skimming for these search terms and identify synonyms along the way. If necessary, use CTRL+F/CMD+F to locate them in the text.

If at this point you find that the article is not as relevant to you as expected, or if you’ve found the information you’re looking for, it is okay to stop reading. Or perhaps you’re unsure if this article is relevant at this point, but may become so in the near future. In that case, you can also read it at a later time.

Reading

After skimming and scanning, you now already have a basic understanding of what the text is about. Now, it is time to read more closely and focus on the details. Two techniques, as defined by Tilburg University Library, are extensive and intensive reading.

Extensive reading means reading a longer section of the text, like a paragraph, without having to understand every single word. The emphasis is on getting the overall meaning.  

Intensive reading takes some more skill and effort, because this is about fully understanding the text. It helps to read important sections one by one and see if you know every word. Tip: write down or mark words that are unfamiliar to you and look up what they mean. It can also be beneficial to take notes, either in the margins of printed text or on a separate piece of paper. Re-read the text if necessary.

While reading the text, it is important to be critical while reading the entire time. Do not take for granted what the author presents to you, but evaluate the information wherever you can. Keep in mind that the author had a specific goal in mind while writing, which could influence how the text is read. Don’t be afraid to oppose the author’s statement based on your own knowledge, but also remain open to ideas that don’t align with your own. Discern facts from opinions, as facts can be checked, but opinions are not inherently right or wrong. Here, it helps to look out for biased words (e.g. good, bad, etc.) or qualifiers (e.g. very, absolutely, usually, etc.), as these can be signs of opinions.  

While evaluating information, you can use the criteria as defined in the Library’s e-learning module ‘Evaluate your information sources’ to evaluate the trustworthiness and relevance of information:

• Transparency: is the author transparent about where the information came from? Are you able to track it down to its original source? Is it clear how the data was gathered?
• Purpose: what is the goal of the text? Why did the author write it? Was the work funded, and if so, by whom and for what purpose?
• Accountability: what is the author’s background? Do they have (verifiable) expertise and experience on this topic?
• Suitability: does the information match my information need? Is it suitable for the questions I would like to answer?
• Currency: is the information still relevant, or is it already too old?
• Information source type: does the source type fit with my information need?

When checking the information and cited sources, it is important to be thorough. Do not just rely on reading the abstract, even though it will give you a good impression of what the article is about. If necessary, use CRTL+F/CMD+F to check for certain keywords. This can help to locate the specific information in the text. Additionally, if the cited sources appear to be a secondary source (e.g. review articles or the author citing another source), try to track down the primary source, as it is good scientific practice to cite these instead of secondary sources.

Post-reading

Once you have finished reading and fully understand the text, it is time to reflect and process the information. For some, it helps to write summaries based on your notes during reading. When doing so, it is important to write in your own words to avoid plagiarism by accident later on. It also helps to talk to others and try explaining to them what you’ve read. Understanding the text fully helps you to form links between your existing knowledge and the newly read information, so you can draw new conclusions. Maybe it even changes what you think about something.

While doing so, keep track of useful information by taking notes or using a dedicated reference manager like EndNote or Zotero. Reference managers help you to organise your literature and allow you to cite during writing, potentially saving you a lot of time and effort.

Additional tips:

• Building a deeper understanding of an article is best done together with others. Therefore, talk with your fellow students and peers about what you’ve read! If you’re unsure about your interpretation or understanding, don’t hesitate to ask questions and discuss different perspectives.
• Expect some challenges and keep reading. It will become easier as you get more familiar with the specific vocabulary used in your field.
• Schedule regular reading time to stay up to date with the scientific literature in your field. Block this time in your calendar and make it a priority.

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